Whatcha Knitting This Week?

Two main things, today at least.  I'm working on my Hospice Blanket during the Cardinal Games as part of the InASknit KAL until the World Series over.  On the PJKnits plan, I am hoping to have this done by the end of September.  

The progress keepers on here signify a couple of things.  The cheeseburger is the start of the repeat, the piece of pizza the end of the repeat.  That way I can look down and see what my next combo of rows should be.  The donut on the right is where I was last week when I blogged about my works in progress.

My Tea Leaves has a sleeve!  But, unfortunately, I'm going to rip it back to the elbow as I do not like the decreases in the area below the elbow.  I have such small arms (after the elbow that is) that I definitely need to make more decreases to get a much smaller wrist.  I'll work them on the second sleeve and then come back and rip and re-work the first sleeve.

I am also knitting on my Kailyard Shawl, trying my darndest to get it to the point of the final section.  It may be a bit til I am ready to tackle that part of it.

Have a great knitting week!!!

Surprise!

Our Sons surprised us with a 40th Anniversary Dinner last night.  We had such a lovely time with our family!

It is hard to believe that it has been 40 years today.  So much fun, so much laughter, a few worries along the way, but all turned out and a few tears, but more sorrow when parents have left us.

We are grateful for all the we have, jobs, our health, our healthy family and all of our wonderful friends.

We can't wait to see what is down the road for us, together.  Happy Weekend!

Friday Fotos

To make way for a fabulous weekend (The Tall Guy and I are celebrating 40 years on Sunday),

 here are some Friday Fotos to start the weekend off!

Winner Winner!

I have been most tardy in posting what I won!  I am knitting Susan B Anderson's new Smooth Operator Socks pattern.  During the month of August, she did some giveaways for those of us who were knitting along on both Instagram and the Ravelry group.  As I am a real fan these days of Instagram, I posted my in progress socks there.

Imagine my surprise, when I received a message from Susan through Ravelry that I won a prize!  A week or so later, look what arrived!  The packet of yarns from Vice Yarns are super colors and so soft, I'm gonna love knitting with them.

And look at the cute little post-it that arrived with it.  How cool is that!!!

A big thank you to both Vice Yarns and Susan B. Anderson!  I am such a fan girl!

Whatcha Knitting This Week?

With the gorgeous weather yesterday, I decided to haul out the WIPS and photo them in some sunshiny light.  There are a few that need some attention this week.

First up, the Tea Leaves Sweater.  I am onto the sleeves, finally.  This is a nice, fun, knit for knitting in public.   I did try it on before starting the sleeves and am hoping that it grows a bit in the blocking.

 Soon, I'll be on the search for a couple of buttons for it.

Also, since it is Hospice week, I pulled out my blanket to see where it is at.  This one is also doubling as part of the InASknit knit along that concludes through the world series.  Even though that is a bit far off, I'd like to get this one off the needles soon.  Now, that the Olympics are over, I'll get back to watching my Cardinals play and this is my go to knit for those games.

I'm still working on my Kailyard Shawl as well and definitely need to show it some love and get it to blocking. Oh, yes, there are others, but these are my go to ones this week.  Have a great week!

Stash Dash Sunday - Final Edition

This week's total was a whoppin 273 yards, which makes my final Stash Dash total, 3,711 yards.  Not what I hoped for, but hey, I am good with it.

And with the end of Stash Dash, comes the end of the Olympics and the closing ceremonies.  What a couple of weeks!  I've watched almost every night until late in the night, foregoing watching most of the Cardinal games.  It will be nice to get back on track to my regularly scheduled t.v. watching.  And while watching the Olympics, have you seen some of the previews for the Fall Shows coming out?  There are couple that I'm interested in catching when the new seasons start.

 Fall really isn't official until sometime in September, but in my mind, I see it as the Tuesday after Labor Day.  So with that in mind, we will be wrapping up the Summer of Shawls that weekend and turning our knitting content to sweaters, with a few shawls and other wonderful knitterly stuff.

It is drop dead gorgeous in Central Illinois, this morning, and we threw open the windows last night after we got home.  We sat on the porch until well after dusk, with not a mosquito in sight.  Today, I am hanging out on the porch doing all kinds of knitting and just kicking back before the start of the work week.  Hope you are having a great weekend wherever you may be.

Catch you on the purl side!

Finally Finished Friday

Just a quick one, but the Honey Cowl/Gater so super soft to knit.  For my friend Kristy who turned 40 yesterday.  You would think I would remember how old she is since the Tall Guy and I will celebrate our 40th in a week or so ish.

Happy Saturday Knitting!

Just a couple of  funnies for this Saturday while I knit away on a birthday present for next Thursday!  Talk about waiting until the last moment!

And I'm using my Yarnit that I bought last week at Stitches Midwest!

What's That Prayer Shawl Ministry About?

There are shawls.

There is a sharing of ideas and the love of knitting and crochet.

There is Yarn.

There is knitting and also some ripping.

There are door prizes! 

There is a sisterhood, laughter, tears and smiles around.

No matter what is going on in the world, there is a bit of peace at the end of Prayer Shawl Ministry. 

Stitches Midwest 2016

Oy, so much to tell you/show you.  So much knitting to be done! Stick with me, won't you, please and thank you.

When going it is so much more fun to go with good friends!

Mornings are beautiful when all you have to do is get up, have someone serve you breakfast,

hang by the fireplace with a cuppa until it is time to head to the market.

We went to the fashion show Friday night and on Saturday headed to some of the booths to see the garments up close and personal.  I loved this one!  Right at the moment, I do not have any place to wear it, but there will be an occasion and I will have it ready.

The yarn is by Universal and for me, I thought out of their normal workhorse yarn box.  I am not sure on how hard the yarn will be to work with, but, when I get to that point I will update you on how much I like or not.

And of course, I already have this in progress and the KAL is still going on over on the Lost City Knits Ravelry group.  Seeing it on the runway AND in Denise/Chris' booth in yellow, along with being able to see it up close and personal and touch it, well, it makes me want to sit and knit away on it this Sunday.

And then there was the market.  8 rows of lovely booths!  Debbie and I figure at least one row of booths were missing (Miss Babs, The Yarn Barn of Kansasy, Signature Needles, etc), but still we managed to shop Thursday night at the preview, Friday until early afternoon and Saturday as well.

So here we go -

A sweater

Ginger

For Poppy for Christmas

Revive from Webs.  I knew that Revive was being discontinued, so I could NOT pass up this color way for a nice summer top.  Probably not until next Summer, this may have to go into stash for awhile.

Poms from Steven Be, the limey one is for me and the multi is for Miss M. for on top of a hat for her for Christmas.

For the Lerwick Harbour Hap out of the Ultima Thule book by Lost City Knits.  I absolutely cannot cast on this one until the Kailyard Shawl is finished!  No, really, I can't!  Lerwick has a main color for the center, which is the two dar teal ones in this picture.  I haven't decided on all of the colors that will make it into the shawl, I picked up an extra (the far left one) in case I want to sub one of the others out. I so want to cast on, but, I CAN'T, really I shouldn't.

I bought another shawl pin, this one seemed to be fairly easy to use and keep in, I'll report on how successful that is when I actually use it.  To be continued…

And because I am such a gadget person, I could not resist these Clover goodies.  Clover had a booth with everything they carry in the knitting line (or at least it appeared they did.  There are clip pies, a very large pom pom maker and a tassel maker as well.

And then, I could not resist a Yarnit.  I think this is going to come in real handy when I knit the Universal Shawl above.  I'll pop the yarn in there and it should stay in place and top fall all apart over in my bag.

I picked ups some patterns and there is one other yarn, that probably will go to hospice or be a hospice blanket, thats a decision for another day and I have one more before I have to go back to work and be a good little worker til Christmas vacay time I think.

It was a wonderful weekend with wonderful friends and seeing old friends in the market and around the hotel that I have see a couple of times a year.  Already, we are planning next year's trip and I've got a couple of booths on a list to take a better look at next year.  Not that I am wishing my life away, but….